subject: The Ghost In The Machine [print this page] Oftentimes, when something is right under our nose, we do not take much notice of it. For example, how many times have you really taken note of the number of times your blink your eyes or that you yawn in a day? What about the mold growing in your roof, have you seen how fast they grow? Oftentimes, small things like the latter can lead to something critical if left unnoticed.
One small thing that is not likely to get unnoticed is a smelly washing machine, for how can one ignore the smell emanating from the washing machine as well as the smell that has clung to the clothes that you have washed? Take the case of the rotten egg smell.
A rotten egg smell emanating from your washing machine could mean one thing decomposing organic material that got trapped somewhere in your machine. There are two possible places where this could occur in the wet system or in the dryer outlet duct.
If the washing machine odor is coming from your wet system, what you have to do is run a cycle of water containing two cups of white vinegar. If none is available, you can use lemon juice as a substitute. Usually, the smell does not go away after the first cycle so you would need to run it at least four more times. Now, to remove the smell of the vinegar, you just have to put about two teaspoons of baking soda during a hot wash.
On the other hand, removing washer odor coming from the dryer outlet duct as well as the lint filter area would involve the use of mild dilute bleach. No fancy tricks on this one as usually the machine odor is caused by insects or rodents getting caught in the duct. There are also times when they would poop in the duct causing the unbearable stench.
There are also instances when build of liquid detergents are the culprit behind the odor from washing machine. The best way to handle this is to switch to a different detergent. You might also need to run a few cycles with nothing but lukewarm water in order to clean the build-up.
